Kony is a former choirboy from northern Uganda who leads a personality cult and militia that he calls the Lord's Resistance Army. He founded the group in the late 1980s, modelling it on the Holy Spirit Movement, led by a similarly charismatic former prostitute, Alice Lakwena, who presented herself as the defender of the Acholi people of northern Uganda, against the government in Kampala of Yoweri Museveni. Lakwena promised her warriors immunity from bullets if they rubbed themselves with shea butter. She was defeated by Museveni's troops in 1988 and fled to Kenya, clearing the path for Kony. He first called his militia the Ugandan People's Democratic Army (UPDA), then the Holy Spirit Mobile Force, and then the LRA.

What do Kony and the LRA want?

It is difficult to identify any consistent aims. The group started off as an Acholi militia and then adopted Christian rhetoric with a heavy dose of mysticism. But, as support from the Acholi fell away, Kony increasingly victimised civilians who refused to join him. Whatever Christian characteristic the LRA may have had also fell away to be replaced by a personality cult centred on Kony. As the militia has been forced out of Uganda and moved into southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, there is has been less emphasis on defeating Museveni. Its aims have narrowed to survival and pillage.

What crimes has Kony committed?

The first arrest warrants ever issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague were aimed at Kony and four of his LRA commanders, for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The 2005 indictments include charges of murder, rape, the sexual enslavement of women and girls and forcing children to fight. The Ugandan army has also been accused of using child soldiers, but the LRA's reputation for brutality is unparalleled. When Kony's troops attack a village, they usually kill most of the adult population and abduct the children. They have been accused of forcing boys to kill their parents as an initiation rite. Girl are shared out among the commanders as sex slaves. The LRA has practised mutilation as a tool of terror, cutting off the lips, noses and ears of its victims.

Why has the LRA been able to operate for so long?

There are several explanations advanced for the Uganda government's failure to deal with the LRA over the past 25 years. The LRA has drawn on some support from the Acholi people, especially as Museveni's army, led by officers from south-west Uganda, was guilty of abuses of its own. The sheer sadism of the LRA terrorised the civilian population and discouraged resistance, while ensuring a steady influx of forced child recruits who were used as cannon fodder on the front line. For two decades, the LRA could rely on the Sudanese government in Khartoum for support and safe haven, in retaliation for Ugandan backing for the southern Sudanese People's Liberation Army. As that supply route was blocked by independence for South Sudan last year and as Ugandan forces have been beefed up by 100 US military advisers with hi-tech support, the LRA has increasingly been forced to melt into the forests of the DRC and CAR.